lynbetweenpages started reading...

The Lion Women of Tehran
Marjan Kamali
lynbetweenpages commented on lynbetweenpages's update
lynbetweenpages DNF'd a book

The House in the Cerulean Sea
T.J. Klune
lynbetweenpages DNF'd a book

The House in the Cerulean Sea
T.J. Klune
lynbetweenpages commented on a post
“The Winchester estate is really beautiful. Even though I’m starting to despise Nina, I can’t hate that house. It’s a beautiful house.”
“The door is locked. The Winchesters locked me in this room. Nina locked me in this room.”
With how she rapid fires the same thought at the reader in 2 - 3 different ways , you would think McFadden is being paid according to her word count. I feel like there are better ways to emphasize an idea without having to constantly resort to this style.
lynbetweenpages wrote a review...
I’ll be honest, I’m not sure it was for me. It had interesting worldbuilding and political dynamics, but there were moments that felt either stretched or too little. I was mostly in it for the audiobook though, and so that’s where my rating will lie.
lynbetweenpages finished a book

Dune
Frank Herbert
lynbetweenpages started reading...

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Robin Wall Kimmerer
lynbetweenpages started reading...

The House in the Cerulean Sea
T.J. Klune
lynbetweenpages started reading...

The Lies They Told
Ellen Marie Wiseman
lynbetweenpages wrote a review...
The book felt more like a coming-of-age story than a horror, which was disappointing because it had such an interesting concept for a plot. It was unfortunate that it fell victim to the pitfall of flat dialogue, simplistic writing, and a lack of pacing between scenes.
lynbetweenpages finished a book

They Bloom at Night
Trang Thanh Tran
lynbetweenpages started reading...

Dune
Frank Herbert
lynbetweenpages commented on a post
lynbetweenpages wrote a review...
It’s bewildering to me that the blurb decided to use terms such as “eerily unsettling” and “haunting the psyche” for stories that, in majority, ended up being so mediocrely normal. The only short stories in the collection that I could in good faith label as well done horror/thrills would be “Mouthful of Birds”, “The Test”, “Olingiris” “Heads Against Concrete”, “Underground”, and “On the Steppe”. While that may seem like a lot of titles at first glance, consider that there are twenty stories in total and the overall quality of the collection goes considerably lower.
lynbetweenpages finished a book

Mouthful of Birds
Samanta Schweblin
Post from the East of Eden forum
I like that this book trusts its readers. It doesn’t give a step by step explanation as to the how and why of the scene, it simply gives you the information necessary and allows you to make the connections yourself. It’s so refreshing.
lynbetweenpages started reading...

Mouthful of Birds
Samanta Schweblin
lynbetweenpages wrote a review...
I wish the author didn’t say “as if” every paragraph, because it really messed with the immersion.
The book itself was decent. It wasn’t anything mind blowing, but I can appreciate that it subverted the miscommunication trope well enough. I do wish that there was more of a focus on the missing lasses and the musical aspects of the story, but griping isn’t going to change what’s already happened.
If you plan to read this, I would recommend the audiobook version narrated by Ruth Urquhart.
lynbetweenpages finished a book

A River Enchanted
Rebecca Ross
Post from the The Café with No Name forum